


Evidence

by Heavyheadedgal



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, F/M, Internal Monologue, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 20:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5389586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heavyheadedgal/pseuds/Heavyheadedgal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's whiskey-fueled thoughts before Phryne barges into his office in "Blood at the Wheel". More of an inner monologue than a missing scene. 1142 words of pure angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evidence

**Author's Note:**

> Not terribly original, I know, but this is what happens when I have to sit through a 90 minute meeting.
> 
> *eta: Changed a word thanks to a helpful suggestion from Apostrophelover!

He poured himself two fingers of whiskey and considered the evidence. He had sat for a full 10 minutes after his shift had finished, staring blankly at his desk, before taking out the bottle. The verdict was inescapable. Jack Robinson was good at two things: his job, and completely buggering up his life. And Phryne Fisher had become integral to both of those tasks.

It felt like a physical blow. The pain of it was as unexpected as the fact of it. It felt like nothing so much as his injury at Broodseinde, 12 years ago. He had taken a rifle butt to the sternum in the bloody anarchy of No Man’s Land; he’d had an ugly yellow and purple bruise that had ached with every breath for weeks. In later years he wondered if that injury had crushed some small, vital part of his heart. It had sat like a lead weight in his chest ever since, until Phryne flounced into his life and beat it back into feeling, sharp and stinging like a limb gone numb from lack of circulation.

He downed the whiskey more quickly than he’d intended. He didn’t approve of drinking on the job, as a rule, but occasionally there was a case so brutal he needed some Irish courage to see it through. He supposed his own case qualified as much as any other. The burn of the alcohol was a welcome distraction from the pain in his chest. A persistent agony that had started with that blasted message, garbled as it had passed among 3 different ( _incompetent!_   _idiotic!_ ) constables.  Miss Fisher was involved in a fatal automobile accident. He had never doubted for a moment that it might not be true, a mistake. He’d seen for himself how easily the best and brightest parts of life could be destroyed at any arbitrary moment. Of course she would be undone by her own cavalier attitude.

When he’d seen the wreckage he felt every loss he’d ever suffered crash down on him at once: his mother, his best mate, his younger brother, his battalion, Rosie. It was nothing like this with Rosie, in the beginning. Their courtship had been light-hearted, fun, even sweet. Ephemeral, in the end, as it turned out. The worst of it was he had lost his only refuge. He had thrown himself into his work when it became clear his marriage had failed. That was denied to him now – _she_ was always there, in his thoughts if not in fact. Even on cases they didn’t share, he’d catch himself thinking, _I wonder what Phryne would make of this?_ or _I might ask Phryne her theory as to possible motive._ He was scrupulous in addressing her as _Miss Fisher_ out loud; but in his mind it was always, always _Phryne_. When had that started? It should have been his first warning. He had deluded himself into believing that resisting her seductions was enough.

He invented excuses to visit her home, delivering messages in person that could just as easily be conveyed over the telephone or through a constable. He flirted back at her, at first to keep her from holding the upper hand in their relationship, and later because he couldn’t help himself. He coveted every wicked grin or a raised eyebrow he got in response. He listened out for her footsteps at the morgue, for her cheery “Hallo, Jack!” at a crime scene. He could be standing next to a pool of blood and still feel his heart lift when she winked cheekily at him. Driving to the scene of the wreck, he had realized how utterly desolate his life appeared without her in it.

He contemplated the bottle—he might as well finish it off at this rate. He was in no rush to get back to his dark house. He placed the bottle very carefully in the bin. He was suffused with a comfortable warmth; his fingers felt clumsy and slow.

There had been rumors, of course, especially at first. He ignored them, and Collins did his best to quash them. Ironically, her reputation was the very thing that eventually undermined any speculation about the nature of their relationship. She would hardly feature in the society column every week with a new beau if she was carrying on with one of City South’s finest. Now he couldn’t help but wonder if his colleagues had noticed something – the way he looked at her, or spoke to her?—that he had been unable to see. Or unwilling. It was all rather embarrassingly obvious in retrospect. He had wrapped his scarf around her at the footie match as if they were sweethearts, feeling perfectly content for the first time in years. And that damned kiss – he could admit now that he'd been overcome by an irresistible mixture of anxiety and pure desire. He had never meant for it to go that far, and shocked himself with the sheer force of his longing. It would serve him right, for behaving so badly, to spend the rest of his life tormented by the memory of her mouth against his.

She did care for him; they were friends, comrades, allies. But she had a generous, affectionate nature in general. She would have him in her bed, certainly, but not in her heart. In many ways they were the same: in principles, in drive, in determination. But there was a fundamental difference: he was, God help him, a romantic, and she was not. It was his great weakness, a terrible quality in a policeman, and one he tried to suppress. But a cynical man did not keep the collected works of Shakespeare in his office (another tonic, for when he’d seen one mutilated body too many in a week). And Phryne Fisher was cynical; warm, compassionate, true, but her freedom had been hard won. He wouldn’t begrudge her that. A mere liaison, if it became known, would almost certainly cost him his career, but more than that, it would cost him his peace of mind. And in so doing, he would lose her altogether.

The idea of courting her was faintly absurd. All the customs he had shared with Rosie, dancing at the Fire and Policeman’s Ball, walking on the foreshore, would hardly suit a woman who had lived as flamboyantly as Phryne had. That a woman who had captivated the intellectuals and aristocrats of Europe would settle down with a middle-aged divorcé with a mortgaged bungalow – it was downright ludicrous.

And what, in the end, could he even offer her?  An endless supply of fresh corpses. A battered heart, slightly rusted from lack of use.

He had a sudden, perverse desire to see Rosie again. The woman who had been his confidant, a lifetime ago. _You were right_ , he’d tell her. _It’s very different the second time._


End file.
